The prayer of transfiguration

Here's the sermon that I shared during today's Eucharist at St Andrew's Wickford: 

The dictionary definition of transfiguration is: a change in form or appearance or an exalting, glorifying, or spiritual change. Those aspects of transfiguration can be seen in our Gospel reading (Luke 9.28-36), but the story defines the word best.

Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, puts it like this: “There’s glory – the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ. There’s the pattern of God’s story in Israel and the church, a story that finds its most poignant moments in the midst of suffering and exile. There’s the loving, tender, presence and heavenly voice of God the Father – a voice that for the only time in their lives, the disciples hear and understand. And there’s the extraordinary realisation that, even though all this could have gone on without them, the disciples have been caught up in the life of the Trinity, the mystery of salvation, the unfolding of God’s heart, the beauty of holiness.”

The way he describes it, transfiguration involves the glory of seeing a person or event in the bigger story of God’s loving purposes for the world. Up until this point, “the disciples know Jesus does plenty of amazing and wonderful things and says many beautiful and true things, but they still assume he’s basically the same as them.” It’s only as they go up the mountain with him that the veil slips and they’re invited in to a whole other world. A world in which “Jesus is completely at home,” “even when the Father’s voice thunders from above.” “And more remarkably still, it seems there’s a place for them in it, hanging out with the likes of Moses and Elijah. They’ve been given a glimpse of glory. It’s a glory that’s faithful to the story of Israel, a glory that has Jesus at the centre of it, a glory that has God speaking words of love, a glory that has a place for them in it, however stumbling and clumsy they are, and finally a glory in which Jesus touches them tenderly in their fear.“

Sam Wells suggests that this experience, this glimpse of glory, can shape the way we pray by giving our prayers the same extra dimension. In fact, he details three different ways to pray. The first involves Resurrection. “Resurrection prayer is a prayer calling for a miracle. It is prayer of faithful risk. We look to the heavens with tightened fist and say, ‘Sweet Jesus, if you’re alive, make your presence known!’”

The second way to pray is Incarnation. This is “a prayer of presence. It is, perhaps, more silent than a prayer of Resurrection. It is a prayer which recognizes that, yes, Jesus was raised, but that it happened through brokenness. Through Christ, God shares our pain and our frailty. So we pray acknowledging that God suffers with us.”

The third way to pray is Transfiguration. Sam writes, “God, in your son’s transfiguration we see a whole reality within and beneath and beyond what we thought we understood; in … times of bewilderment and confusion, show … father your glory, that [we] may find a deeper truth to … life than [we] ever knew, make firmer friends than [we] ever had, discover reasons for living beyond what [we’d] ever imagined, and be folded into your grace like never before.” “In other words, it is a prayer that, in whatever circumstance, asks God to reshape our reality, to give us a new and right spirit to trust that even in the midst of suffering and hardship, truth can still be experienced and shared.”

“On the mountain, the disciples discovered that Christ was part of a conversation with Israel and God and was dwelling in glory in a way that they had no idea of and could hardly grasp and yet it put everything on a different plane.”

As a result, the prayer of Transfiguration is a different kind of a prayer. “The prayer of resurrection has a certain defiance about it – in the face of what seem to be all the known facts, it calls on God to produce the goods and turn the situation round. It has courage and hope but there’s always that fear that it has a bit of fantasy as well. The prayer of incarnation is honest and unflinching about the present and the future, but you could say it’s a little too much swathed in tragedy … it’s so concerned to face … reality … that there’s always that fear that it’s never going to discover the glory of what lies above.”

The prayer of Transfiguration is different. “Not so much, ‘Fix this and take it off my desk!’ Nor even, ‘Be with me and share in my struggle, now and always.’ But something more like, ‘Make this trial and tragedy, this problem and pain, a glimpse of your glory, a window into your world, when I can see your face, sense the mystery in all things, and walk with angels and saints. Bring me closer to you in this crisis than I ever have been in calmer times. Make this a moment of truth, and when I cower in fear and feel alone, touch me, raise me, and make me alive like never before.’”

Maybe you would like to make the prayer of transfiguration your prayer for yourself at this time, “in the midst of whatever it is you’re wrestling with today.”

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John David - Closer To Thee.

That the world may believe

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Catherine’s Wickford this morning:

“They love every one, but are persecuted by all … Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.”

That is how Christians were described in the Letter to Diognetus which may have been written in the second century. Tertullian, one of the leaders in the early Church, in his 2nd century defense of Christians remarks how Christian love attracted pagan notice: "What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another'" (Apology 39).

This is what Jesus anticipated when he prayed that his disciples would be completely one in order that the world may know that he was sent by God the Father and they are loved by the Father just as Jesus is loved by the Father (John 17.18-23). As Lesslie Newbigin has written “this manifest unity in the one name will challenge the world to recognise that the name of Jesus is not the name of “one of the prophets” but the name of the one sent by the Father to whom all that belongs to the Father has been given.” The sign to the world that Jesus is who he claimed to be is to be, and has actually been at times in the past, the love and unity of the Church.

Therefore, the lack of unity, as expressed in the way discussions are conducted, that is currently found within the Church of England and within the Anglican Communion over issues of sexuality deeply grieves God and has a profound effect on the Church’s ability to witness to the truth of Jesus. It also reveals the extent to which we have not fully understood or received the love of the Father and the Son. It is not that difficult debates cannot go on - they absolutely should - but we need to have such discussions without impacting our unity.  

Jesus’ prayer is that the love which the Father has for the Son will also be in his disciples. It is as we know that love in our lives that we are able to love and be united with the wider Church. The Church is based not on our natural liking of each other instead the Church is based on our being caught up into the love relationship that exists between Father and Son and knowing both ourselves and each other to be loved in precisely the same way.

Richard Burridge has written that, “such unity is rooted in the life of God: ‘as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.’ Jesus answered Philip’s desire to see the Father with ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me.’ This unity between the Father and the Son is to be shared through the indwelling of the Spirit with all who love him. Thus the command to ‘love one another’ is ‘new’, because it is no mere moral exhortation, but a sharing in the life of God, ‘as I have loved you’.

Stephen Verney has called this love relationship between the Father and the Son, the dance of love. He describes it like this:

“The Son can do nothing of himself”, [Jesus] says, “but only what he sees the Father doing” … He looks, and what he sees the Father doing, that he does; he listens, and what he hears the Father saying, that he says. The other side of the equation – of the choreography – is the generosity of the Father. “The Father loves the Son, and reveals to him everything which he is doing”, and furthermore, he gives him authority to do “out of himself” all that the Father does, and can never cease to do because it flows “out of himself”. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, “I and the Father are one.” The Son cries “Abba! Father!” and the Father cries “my beloved Son”, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.”

We become part of the love relationship when we become Christians as Burridge reminded us; to love one another is no mere moral exhortation but a sharing in the life of God. So that is the question for us tonight, and for the Church of England and the Anglican Communion at this moment in its life and history, to what extent are we actually sharing in the life of God? To what extent are we participating in the love that exists between God the Father and God the Son? If we are, then both our words and actions towards our fellow Christians will be words and actions of love leading to unity? If we are not, then the reverse will be true.

So, can we today regret our failure to participate more fully in the love that exists between the Father and the Son? Will we today ask to participate more fully in that love? Our answers are vital, not merely for ourselves, but for the witness of the Church to Christ. “Jesus brings together the unity he has with the Father and the love of the disciples for one another – but it is not just to generate warm feelings of togetherness. The purpose is for the continuing mission, ‘that the world may believe that you have sent me’. The world, Burridge writes, does not naturally ponder the internal relationships of the Holy Trinity, but when it sees Christians living this self-sacrificial love then it is challenged to think again. As were the writer of the Letter to Diognetus and those of whom Tertullian wrote:

“They love every one, but are persecuted by all … Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.”

"What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another'".

May it be so for us. Amen.

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Eternal Ruler Of The Ceaseless Round.

God so loved that he gave

Here's the Stewardship sermon based on John 3. 16 – 21 that I shared this morning at St Andrew’s Wickford:

God so loved - love is from God because God is love; pure love, the essence of all that love is and can be. Love that is patient, kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. Love that does not insist on its own way; is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love that never ends.

God so loved the world - the heavens and the earth that God created in the beginning, the heavens which declare the glory of God and the sky that displays what his hands have made, humankind that God created in his own image. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. God so loved he world that he created in the beginning.

God so loved the world that he gave – true love involves giving; in fact, true love is giving. Our love is often less than this. We speak of those we love as being everything we need or as soul mates who complete us, but rarely talk in terms of giving all we have to others. Yet that is the nature of God’s love, he gives all he has to us.

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son – the Father gives us his Son and the Son gives his life, his whole life, even unto death. Yet, because Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, this is a way of saying that what God gives to us is himself, everything he has and is. 

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life – God gives himself to us in order that we can become part of him and enter the very life of God himself. Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it to the full. Eternal life is the life of love that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit share within the Godhead and in to which we are called to come and share by the ever-giving love that God the Father shows to us through God the Son.

God’s love has been revealed among us in this way, that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. We live in the light of this love which reveals all that we can potentially be and become as human beings. As his love resulted in his giving himself to us and for us, so our response to him should be the same.

Stewardship month is an annual reminder to us that that is so when it comes to the contribution we make as Christian disciples; when it comes to the money we give back to God, the talents we use in his service, the community contribution we make and the environmentally-friendly actions we take.

Our Parish needs a whole series of small contributions at present as we need new volunteers across the whole range of our ministry. We are looking for a new PCC Treasurer, members of our District Church Councils (the DCCs) and Parochial Church Council (our PCC). We would value new members of our choir and people who could work with children when they come to our services. We always value help with administration, pastoral visiting, prayer ministry and with our publicity (website, social media etc). The packs that you have been given include more information about Stewardship and response forms to help you think more about the ways you give currently and what might be possible in the future. The packs include a form you can fill in to offer your help.

When it comes to our financial giving, we have faced significant challenges as for a long time we haven’t been able to give the Diocese the Parish Share that is needed to cover the cost of clergy and the other support that the Diocese provides. We are gradually increasing the amount we give to the Diocese for our support year-on—year. However, we need to maintain and improve that situation this year, so ask that you reconsider your giving at this time and use Stewardship Month to decide what you can contribute to St Andrew’s and our Parish in future. There are forms in the Pack which can be used if you want to start giving or if you are able to change what you are giving.

God so loved the world that he gave – true love involves giving; in fact, true love is giving. As his love resulted in his giving himself to us and for us, so our response to him should be the same. May we use the opportunity that Stewardship month provides to reflect together on the contribution we make as Christian disciples; through the money we give back to God, the talents we use in his service, the community contribution we make and the environmentally-friendly actions we take. Amen.

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Extreme - Everything Under The Sun: Rise 'N Shine / Am I Ever Gonna Change / Who Cares?

Conversation as communion

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

In the Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke - Jesus is portrayed as a teller of pithy and pointed stories but in John’s Gospel this is not the case and, instead, Jesus is portrayed as engaging in conversation with those around. Nathanael, Mary, the mother of Jesus, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the crowds of Jews and their leaders, Mary and Martha, and Pilate are all examples of people who are recorded as having significant conversations with Jesus.

Like them, the writer of this Gospel has entered into conversation with God himself and has entered “into the maturity and fullness of the Lord’s Prayer as a dialogue between Father and Son” learning to listen as well as to speak, “as Jesus listened to the Father and offered himself to bring to carry out the secret purpose which the Father could not bring to fruition without him”. For him, as for Jesus, self-consciousness has become prayer – a conversation with God. It is this same conversation into which he, following Jesus, wishes to draw us.

Jesus as God’s Son is in conversation with both God the Father and with God the Spirit. Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.” (John 5. 17-30)

The Son claims that he hears from the Father and speaks just what the Father has taught him (John 8: 26 – 29). He also claims that his relationship with the Father is not just one way, rather the Father also always hears the Son (John 11: 41 & 42). Similarly, he says that the Spirit will not speak on his own but only what he hears (John 16: 13). The Spirit is sent, like the Son, by the Father, but comes in the name of the Son to remind the disciples of everything that the Son said to them (John 14: 26 & 27). This interplay or dialogue within the Godhead between Father, Son and Spirit can be summed up in the words of John 3. 34-35: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.”

John’s Gospel dramatises for us the extent to which Jesus was in the conversation with God and to which this conversation was Jesus. Conversation here is essentially another word for communion: “God is no more than what the Father, Son and Spirit give to and receive from each other in the inseparable communion that is the outcome of their love. Communion is the meaning of the word: there is no ‘being’ of God other than this dynamic of persons in relation”.

Stephen Verney called this the ‘Dance of Love’, the interplay between the Father, the Spirit and Jesus into which we are invited to enter: “”I can do nothing”, [Jesus] said, “except what I see the Father doing”. If he lays aside his teaching robes and washes the feet of the learners … it is because he sees his Father doing it. God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, is like that; he too lays aside his dignity and status as a teacher. He does not try to force his objective truth into our thick heads, but he gives himself to us in acts of humble service; he laughs with us and weeps with us, and he invites us to know him in our hearts through an interaction and an interplay between us. It is this knowledge that Jesus has received from the Father, and in the to and fro of this relationship he and the Father are one. They need each other. That is the pattern of how things potentially are in the universe, and of how God means them to be”.

In saying that we are called to enter in to this interplay within and between the Trinity, Verney is saying that we are called to join the conversation between Father, Son and Spirit. It is this that we see happening in John’s Gospel as Nathanael, Mary, Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the crowds of Jews and their leaders, the disciples, Mary and Martha, and Pilate among others are all drawn into the conversation within the Godhead.

God wants us to be in conversation, in dialogue, in debate, with him so that we can find him for ourselves, find ourselves in him, and embody his characteristics and interests in ourselves. The philosopher, Martin Buber, has argued that “God is not met by turning away from the world or by making God into an object of contemplation, a “being” whose existence can be proved and whose attributes can be demonstrated.” Instead, we can know God only in dialogue with him and this dialogue goes on moment by moment in each new situation as we respond with our whole being to the unforeseen and the unique.

Our dialogue with God interrogates the very nature of what we are, and how we understand our identity, as it is from the art of conversation that truth emerges and our identity is constructed. It is through this conversation that the Father loves us, showing us all that he is doing. Truth emerging and identity constructed are the greater works which he shows to us through this conversation and which astonish us. Amen.

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The Innocence Mission - Every Hour Here.

Living and loving in Truth

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Mary's Runwell and St Nicholas Laindon this morning;

Last year was the twentieth anniversary of my ordination. I can still remember well the beginning of my training for ordination and the circumstances, changes and feelings involved for me and my family in the challenges of that new beginning. For me, my ministerial studies involved exploring my faith more deeply through theological study and responding to the challenge of exploring many different understandings of what ordained ministry would involve. I had fears about the impact that my change of vocation would have on my family, as they began to experience what life as a clergy family was going to involve. I was also unsure about the extent to which I could meet the expectations that others might place on me once I put on ‘the collar’.

Our Gospel reading (John 17.6-19) takes us into a similar period of change for Jesus’ disciples. Our reading is part of the prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples on the night before he died and it is a prayer about vocation for those disciples. Chronologically this prayer comes before Jesus’ Ascension, but, in terms of its content, it is a post-Ascension prayer because Jesus’ concern is for his disciples once he has left them. Many of his disciples had been on the road with him for three years and had sat at his feet as disciples listening to his teaching, observing his example and imbibing his spirit. Following his Ascension, he would leave them and they would have the challenge of continuing his ministry without him there. He knew that that experience would be challenging and therefore he prayed for them to be supported and strengthened in the challenges they would face.

I want us to reflect today on three aspects of the section of Jesus’ prayer that we have as today’s Gospel reading. The three aspects are unity, protection and sanctification; but before considering those things, I want us to note that the prayer which Jesus began on earth continues in eternity. In Hebrews 7:25 we read that Jesus ‘always lives to make intercession’ for us and, in Romans 8:34, St Paul writes: ‘Christ Jesus … is at the right hand of God [and] intercedes for us.’ Many of us will have experienced the benefit, particularly in times of stress and trial, of knowing that others are praying for us and that we are, therefore, regularly on their minds and in their hearts. These verses assure us that we are constantly and eternally on the mind and heart of God and Jesus is consistently sending his love to us in the form of his prayers. That reality underpins this prayer and can be a source of strength and comfort to us, particularly when times are tough.

What Jesus prays in today’s Gospel reading, he continues to pray in eternity, so let’s think now about the first aspect of Jesus’ prayer for us, which is unity. Jesus prays that his disciples may be one, as he is one with God the Father and God the Spirit. In other words, we have to understand the unity that is the Godhead, before we can understand the unity that Jesus wants for his disciples. As God is one and also three persons at one and the same time, there is a community at the heart of God with a constant exchange of love between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. That exchange is the very heartbeat of God and is the reason we are able to say that God is love. Everything that God is and does and says is the overflow of the exchange of love that is at the heart of the Godhead. Jesus invites us to enter into that relationship of love and to experience it for ourselves. That is his prayer, his teaching and also the purpose of his incarnation, death and resurrection. 

Jesus gave the command that we should love one another as we have been loved by God. It is in the sharing of love with each other that we experience unity and experience God. Unity, then, does not come from beliefs or propositions. It is not to do with statements or articles of faith. It does not involve us thinking or believing the same thing. Instead, unity is found in relationship, in the constant, continuing exchange of love with others within community; meaning that unity is actually found in diversity. Jesus prays that we will have that experience firstly by coming into relationship with a relational God and secondly by allowing the love that is at the heart of the Godhead to fill us and overflow from us to others, whilst also receiving the overflow of that love from others.

The second aspect of Jesus’ prayer is his prayer for our protection. Our need for protection is often physical and immediate. That is certainly the case for those caught up in conflict around our world currently. Their need to be protected is one that can be met by ceasefires, provision of aid and then home building, underpinned by prayer. Similarly, church communities can provide tangible protection. I remember hearing a guest of the Sunday International Group at St Martin-in-the-Fields say that that church had been a ‘shelter from the stormy blast’ for him. In his prayer Jesus asks that we will be protected in a different way, by being protected in God’s name. Jesus said that God’s name had been given to him and that he had then given that name to his disciples.

In our day, we have lost much of the depth and richness that names held in more ancient cultures. Names in Jesus’ culture and earlier were signs or indicators of the essence of the thing named. When we read the story of Adam naming the animals in the Book of Genesis that is what was going on; Adam was identifying the distinctive essence of each creature brought before him and seeking a word to capture and articulate that essential characteristic. It is also why the name of God is so special in Judaism – so special that it cannot be spoken – as the name of God discloses God’s essence or core or the very heart of his being. Jesus prayed that we might be put in touch with, in contact with, in relationship with, the very essence of God’s being by knowing his name. That contact is what will protect us. If we are in contact with the essential love and goodness that is at the very heart of God then that will fill our hearts, our emotions, our words, our actions enabling us to live in love with others, instead of living selfishly in opposition to others. Jesus prays that the essential love which is at the heart of God will transform us in our essence, meaning that we are then protected from evil by being filled with love.

The third aspect of Jesus’ prayer is to do with sanctification. Sanctification is the process of becoming holy. Jesus prays that we will be sanctified in truth, with the truth being the word of God. The Prologue to John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus himself is the Word of God. Therefore Jesus’ prays for us to become holy in Him. It is as we live in relationship to him, following in the Way that he has established, that we are sanctified. That is what it means for us to know Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life. It is vital that we note that we are not sanctified by the Truth, meaning that sanctification is not about knowing and accepting truths that we are to believe. Instead, we are sanctified in the Truth, meaning that we are made holy as we inhabit, experience, practice and live out the Truth; with that truth being Jesus. 

Knowing God is, therefore, like diving ever deeper into a bottomless ocean where there is always more to see and encounter. We are within that ocean – the truth of relationship with Jesus – and can always see and uncover and discover more of the love of God because the reality of God is of an infinite depth of love. God created all things and therefore all things exist in him and he is more than the sum of all things, so it is impossible for us with our finite minds to ever fully know or understand his love. However profound our experience of God has been, there is always more for us to discover because we live in and are surrounded by infinitude of love. St Augustine is reported to have described this reality in terms of God being a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

It was in my ordination training that I discovered and experienced the reality of these things in a new way for myself. Through debate and discussion with others on my course I was able to re-examine my faith while also being held by the sense of unity that we quickly developed despite our differences. Those relationships have proved extremely strong and necessary as our ordained ministries have later been lived out. My fears about my personal inadequacy and the pressures there would be for my family were eased through a sense that we were on an unfolding journey of discovering God’s love which protects and sanctifies.

I moved from an understanding of God as being there for us – the one who fixes us and who fixes the world for us – to an understanding that we are in God – that in him we live and move and have our being. Because we are with God and in God and God in us, we can and will act in ways that are God-like and Godly. That happens not because we hold a particular set of beliefs or follow a particular set of rules, instead it happens because we are so immersed in God and in his love that his love necessarily overflows from us in ways that we cannot always anticipate or control. Essentially, we learn to improvise as Jesus did, because we are immersed in his ways and his love. Jesus prays constantly for a continual and continuing immersion in relationship with Him so that we will experience unity by sharing love, protection by experiencing the essence of God and holiness through living in Him. May it be so for each one of us. Amen.

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The Call - Everywhere I Go.

Look how they love one another

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

“They love every one, but are persecuted by all … Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.”

That is how Christians were described in the Letter to Diognetus which may have been written in the second century. Tertullian, one of the leaders in the early Church, in his 2nd century defense of Christians remarks how Christian love attracted pagan notice: "What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another'" (Apology 39).

This is what Jesus anticipated when he prayed that his disciples would be completely one in order that the world may know that he was sent by God the Father and they are loved by the Father just as Jesus is loved by the Father (John 17.18-23). As Lesslie Newbigin has written “this manifest unity in the one name will challenge the world to recognise that the name of Jesus is not the name of “one of the prophets” but the name of the one sent by the Father to whom all that belongs to the Father has been given.” The sign to the world that Jesus is who he claimed to be is to be, and has actually been at times in the past, the love and unity of the Church.

Therefore, whenever there is a lack of unity in the Church it deeply grieves God and has a profound effect on the Church’s ability to witness to the truth of Jesus. It also reveals the extent to which we have not fully understood or received the love of the Father and the Son. Jesus’ prayer is that the love which the Father has for the Son will also be in his disciples. It is as we know that love in our lives that we are able to love and be united with the wider Church. The Church is based not on our natural liking of each other instead the Church is based on our being caught up into the love relationship that exists between Father and Son and knowing both ourselves and each other to be loved in precisely the same way.

Richard Burridge has written that, “such unity is rooted in the life of God: ‘as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.’ Jesus answered Philip’s desire to see the Father with ‘I am in the Father and the Father in me.’ This unity between the Father and the Son is to be shared through the indwelling of the Spirit with all who love him. Thus the command to ‘love one another’ is ‘new’, because it is no mere moral exhortation, but a sharing in the life of God, ‘as I have loved you’.

Stephen Verney has called this love relationship between the Father and the Son, the dance of love. He describes it like this: “The Son can do nothing of himself”, [Jesus] says, “but only what he sees the Father doing” … He looks, and what he sees the Father doing, that he does; he listens, and what he hears the Father saying, that he says. The other side of the equation – of the choreography – is the generosity of the Father. “The Father loves the Son, and reveals to him everything which he is doing”, and furthermore, he gives him authority to do “out of himself” all that the Father does, and can never cease to do because it flows “out of himself”. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, “I and the Father are one.” The Son cries “Abba! Father!” and the Father cries “my beloved Son”, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.”

We become part of the love relationship when we become Christians as Burridge reminded us; to love one another is no mere moral exhortation but a sharing in the life of God. So today we need to ask ourselves to what extent are we participating in the love that exists between God the Father and God the Son? If we are, then both our words and actions towards our fellow Christians will be words and actions of love leading to unity? If we are not, then the reverse will be true.

“Jesus brings together the unity he has with the Father and the love of the disciples for one another – but it is not just to generate warm feelings of togetherness. The purpose is for the continuing mission, ‘that the world may believe that you have sent me’.” The world, Burridge writes, does not naturally ponder the internal relationships of the Holy Trinity, but when it sees Christians living this self-sacrificial love then it is challenged to think again. As were the writer of the Letter to Diognetus and those of whom Tertullian wrote:

“They love every one, but are persecuted by all … Their names are blackened and yet they are cleared. They are mocked and bless in return. They are treated outrageously and behave respectfully to others. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; when punished, they rejoice as if being given new life.”

"What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our loving kindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another'".

May it be so for us. Amen.

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Blessid Union of Souls - I Believe.

Amazing grace, extravagent love and intimate communion

Here's the sermon that I shared this morning for Trinity Sunday at St Catherine's Wickford:

“The grace of the lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” It is common practise in church meetings for those present to close the meeting by saying the grace out loud, and to each other. “We say those words so often, at the end of meetings – sometimes with head bowed low and sometimes looking round at each other so we can speak them directly to each other. They are so familiar to us that we could easily forget they come from the Bible.” (https://tauntonurc.org.uk/grace-for-trinity/)

John Wesley wrote of this prayer, “Let us study it more and more, that we may value it proportionably; that we may either deliver or receive it with a becoming reverence, with eyes and hearts lifted up to God.” (https://www.lords-prayer-words.com/famous_prayers/may_the_grace.html) I would like us to do what John Wesley commends and study the Grace more and more this morning, doing so on the basis of a combination of some translations of the passage. So, I’d like us to reflect together on the amazing grace of Jesus, the extravagant love of God, and the intimate communion of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s begin by thinking about where this prayer comes from. “It comes right at the end of a letter, or letters probably, that Paul wrote to a church he founded, but a church that had turned on him.” “It’s great that we have Paul’s collection of letters to the church at Corinth in the Bible if only because it reminds us that there never was a golden age when it was easy to be part of the church. This church argued, split, coped with scandal, economic division, with the charismatics versus the conservatives – all of which shows that there’s nothing much new under the sun. It’s clear when you read between the lines that Paul had been getting the first century equivalent of on-line abuse, that this church that he had set up had been getting at him for being too poor, too scruffy, for working with his hands, for not having the right qualifications.” He’s under attack and has to defend himself but, “at the end of this long, passionate, sometimes weary and difficult correspondence”, he “writes these simple and ageless words, ‘The grace of the lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.’”

“Maybe Paul composed [this prayer] and maybe he didn’t – maybe his churches used this blessing already and it was a phrase already known to them – but it’s an astonishing thought – that Christians through centuries and in many places have blessed each other with these same words. Reading them at the end of Paul’s letters gives them an added edge. These are not just pious, empty, words. He is saying them to people who have criticised him, hated him, attacked him, and abused him. He is wishing the grace of Jesus, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, upon those who cast him as an enemy. He says, in a way, it doesn’t matter what you say about me or what you think of me. Your abuse and attack isn’t going to make me anything different from the person I am determined to be; a person shaped by God’s grace, living God’s love, seeking fellowship, friendship, community with anyone.”

The effect of the Grace here is “to offer us the full resources of the faith”: “When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he and they were both aware that they were doing and enduring some pretty terrible things. But Paul told them that God wanted to give them the grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. That is what God wants to do with all of us – to bless us with the gifts of the beautiful Trinity and to show us what human life – touched by such blessing – could really be like.” (https://tauntonurc.org.uk/grace-for-trinity/)

So, let’s look briefly at the individual parts of this prayer, beginning with amazing grace. U2’s song called ‘Grace’ defines the amazing grace of Jesus as follows: Grace “takes the blame”, “covers the shame” and “removes the stain”. “What once was hurt / What once was friction / What left a mark / No longer stings / Because Grace makes beauty / Out of ugly things / Grace finds beauty / In everything / Grace finds goodness in everything.” (https://www.u2.com/lyrics/53)

Jesus himself told a story about a son who squandered his father's inheritance (the parable of the prodigal son). When the son returns, rather than rejecting or disciplining him, the father runs to greet him and celebrates his return. That story gives us an insight into the kind of love that God gives. Grace is the unmerited favour of God which finds goodness in everything. We do not deserve the love and goodness that is freely and unconditionally given from heaven and all we can or need do is receive it. That is truly amazing grace.

When we understand grace in this way, we can see why God’s love is described as extravagant. There is no holding back in the economy of God’s love, instead there is an overwhelming generosity which involves self-emptying. St Paul writes in the letter to the Philippians that Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” There was no holding back when it came to Jesus sharing God’s love with us, not even the withholding of his own life.

The currency of the kingdom of God is of abundant generosity of things that never run out. “The secret of happiness is learning to love the things God gives us in plenty. There’s no global shortage of friendship, kindness, generosity, sympathy, creativity, faithfulness, laughter, love. These are the currency of abundance.

The Church of today needs to rediscover this teaching because God gives us the abundance of the kingdom to renew the poverty of the church. In our generation God has given his Church a financial crisis, and this can only be for one reason: to teach us that abundance does not lie in financial security, and to show us that only in relationships of mutual interdependence, relationships that money obscures as often as it enables, does abundant life lie.”

As John McKnight and Peter Block have noted in their book ‘The Abundant Community’, that we live in a consumer society which is an economy of scarcity because it “constantly tells us that we are insufficient and that we must purchase what we need from specialists and systems outside of our immediate community.” Instead, they argue that “we can do unbelievable things by starting with our assets, not our deficits. We all have gifts to offer, even the most seemingly marginal among us. Using our particular assets (our skills, experience, insights and ideas) we have the God-given power to create a hope-filled life and can be the architects of the future where we want to live.” Finding ways to thrive in our churches and communities by releasing the gifts of all and building on one another’s assets is a sign of the extravagant love of God.

Finally, we come to the intimate communion of the Holy Spirit. Sam Wells and Abigail Kocher have noted “the subtlety of the word ‘communion’: com means with and union means in – we are at the same time with God and in God, which combines our two heavenly aspirations.” (https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/keeping-the-feast/)

In communion God takes our lives into the Godhead, the Trinity, and blesses us. In a Communion Service that happens particularly when the bread and wine and money and prayers are brought to the altar: “In that moment we each bring our different qualities, resources, hopes and dreams to God. And then the pastor recalls the sacred story of how God took what we are and made it what he is. And in that transformation we each receive back the same. What this is depicting is a new society in which we each bring our differentness to God but we each receive back from God the same bread of life. We each have different hungers, but God satisfies them all.

And in this dynamic of transformation we see how salvation works. God takes a simple people and their simple offerings and gives them a sacred story and sacred actions and in the regular telling of that story and performance of those actions they are transformed into God’s holy people. And that’s exactly what the regular celebration of the Eucharist is about: God taking an ordinary people and through this story and these actions turning them into the body of Christ, God’s companions forever.” (https://chapel-archives.oit.duke.edu/documents/sermons/Sept20TeachingEucharist-1.pdf)

As we have been exploring grace, love and communion, notice that the Son, the Father and Holy Spirit are all involved all the time. It’s not that Jesus is the only expression of grace or the Father, the only expression off love. All three are one, so they are all involved in showing and sharing grace, love and communion. We are drawn in to the relationship of love at the heart of the Godhead where grace, love and communion are constantly being shared and exchanged between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is out of this relationship of love that Jesus comes into our world to be with us and thereby open up a way for us to participate in the relationship of love that is constantly being shared between Father, Son and Spirit.

So, this wonderful prayer - “The grace of the lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you” – is not simply for the ending of meetings but for the whole of life and the whole of eternity. It is what Christianity is all about. It is a description of the Trinity and the love that exists at the heart of all things because it exists at the heart of God. And it is an invitation for us to become part of that love and participate in it. So, let us, as John Wesley commends, “receive it with a becoming reverence, with eyes and hearts lifted up to God.”

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Michael Kiwanuka - I'm Getting Ready.

Travelling Well Together

Here's my sermon from this morning's joint service at St Mary's Runwell:

There's a very old joke about a child in Sunday School. A Sunday-school teacher asks the class of young children, "What is little and gray, eats nuts, and has a big bushy tail?" After a moment one child replies, "I know the answer's probably supposed to be Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me."

Talking recently with our youth discussion group about the Bible, we were saying essentially that, that Jesus is both the way in to the Bible and what the Bible is all about. It's all about Jesus, as the Sunday school child had grasped.

That's what we get here in these parables from Jesus (John 10. 1-10). Jesus is both the gate to the sheep fold and the shepherd who brings the sheep in and out. It's all about Jesus, whether it's about beginning the Christian life as we join the flock and enter the fold or living the Christian life, as we go in and out of the sheep fold with Jesus in order to find pasture.

These parables give us picture of a part of the Christian life; that part that is about being together as a flock, receiving sustenance during the day when we are away from the fold and protection during the night when we are in the fold.

It's all about Jesus because he is the one who leads us to sustenance and who protects us with his body from evil. It's all about Jesus because Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the way we can come to see what God is actually like and feed on him by becoming like him, as well as the one who, by laying down his own life, enables us to find forgiveness and freedom from sin.

The point, in these parables, is that we travel well together; that we remain together and that we travel in and out of the sheep fold together.

Bishop Guli, the Bishop of Chelmsford, spent time at the beginning of her ministry in the Diocese travelling around the Diocese listening to people in it. As a result of her listening exercise, we have a document called Travelling Well Together, a document that is being given out today and also on Sunday 21st May, the day of our APCM, as it, as its title indicates, suggests ways or values for travelling well together as churches, parishes, a diocese, and as the pilgrim people of God.

The values are: Awareness of grace – as God always provides the resources required for the mission of the church to continue; Valuing the small, the vulnerable and the marginal - our calling is not to strain after worldly success, influence and power but to be a faithful and gentle presence and trust that God will use our efforts in ways we may never fully understand; Focusing outward - always called to look to the needs of those beyond the Church; Sustaining healthy rhythms - invited to live life in all its fulness; Kindness, mutual respect, gentleness and humility - virtues which are often underestimated and undervalued; Generously collaborative – a willingness to work well with others in a spirit of open honesty and transparency; Faithful, creative, courageous and open to the unexpected and surprising – faithful to the traditions we have received, whilst at the same time being open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit who continues to lead us into all truth. These are values that are all about Jesus, as he provides the template as well as the means for coming together, staying together and travelling well together.

We need to be focused on Jesus and on shared values at this time as we approach the APCM and the point that I have been with you for a year. We can look back on a year of development, a year in which seeds have been sown, some of which have already sprouted.

Our connections to the communities of Wickford and Runwell have grown, our profile in the wider community has developed, new initiatives like Unveiled, Quiet Days and the Parent and Toddler Group have helped in bringing that about. Some new people have joined, our youth discussion group has begun and we are preparing to run enquirers courses and wellbeing groups.

So, there are encouragements, but we are also at a critical time, a time when, rather than staying together and travelling well together, we could begin to pull apart and allow our differences as people and churches to pull us apart. The reality is that there are differences as well as commonalities in the way that we are as churches in our team and if we focus on the differences - one does this, while the other does that, or one has this, while the other has that - then we will pull in different directions and will pull ourselves apart.

The answer to it is to look to Jesus, rather than at ourselves. In Jesus, we see how God is one, although three; how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each different persons with different roles, yet are constantly communicating with one another, constantly sharing love, and therefore constantly communicating and sharing love with us too.

The values that are shared in Travelling Well Together are the values of Jesus, which are the values of the Trinity, of God. They are what we need in order to be together as a flock, to travel in and out of the sheep fold together to find sustenance and to be protected.

To be in that place and to travel in that way is to look at Jesus, rather than ourselves, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, rather than going our own way, and to feed on Jesus, rather than finding our own sustenance. It's all about Jesus, as the Sunday School child had come to realise. If we want to travel well together as a team and a parish, then we need to do the same, and reading and absorbing the values in this document will help us do that together. Amen.

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Cat Stevens - Peace Train.

Invited in to the Dance of Love

Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:

Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.” (John 5. 17-30)

“God wants to communicate with humanity, and … Jesus represents the essence of that desire to talk,” says Mike Riddell. As God’s Son, Jesus was in a constant conversation with both God the Father and with God the Spirit. In these verses and others, the Son claims that he hears from the Father and speaks just what the Father has taught him (John 8: 26 – 29). He also claims that his relationship with the Father is not just one way, rather the Father also always hears the Son (John 11: 41 & 42). Similarly, he says that the Spirit will not speak on his own but only what he hears (John 16: 13). The Spirit is sent, like the Son, by the Father, but comes in the name of the Son to remind the disciples of everything that the Son said to them (John 14: 26 & 27). This interplay or dialogue within the Godhead between Father, Son and Spirit can be summed up in the words of John 3. 34-35: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.”

Stephen Verney calls this interplay between Father, Son and Spirit, which he believes we are called to enter, ‘the Dance of Love.’ He writes: “”I can do nothing”, [Jesus] said, “except what I see the Father doing”. If he lays aside his teaching robes and washes the feet of the learners … it is because he sees his Father doing it. God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, is like that; he too lays aside his dignity and status as a teacher. He does not try to force his objective truth into our thick heads, but he gives himself to us in acts of humble service; he laughs with us and weeps with us, and he invites us to know him in our hearts through an interaction and an interplay between us. It is this knowledge that Jesus has received from the Father, and in the to and fro of this relationship he and the Father are one. They need each other. That is the pattern of how things potentially are in the universe, and of how God means them to be”.

The beginning of John’s Gospel can be read as saying that this kind of conversation, dialogue and partnership with God is actually what life is all about: “It all arose out of a conversation, conversation within God, in fact the conversation was God. So God started the discussion, and everything came out of this, and nothing happened without consultation.

This was the life, life that was the light of human beings, shining in the darkness, a darkness which neither understood nor quenched its creativity …

The subject of the conversation, the original light, came into the world, the world that had arisen out of his willingness to converse. He fleshed out the words but the world did not understand. He came to those who knew the language, but they did not respond. Those who did became a new creation (his children). They read the signs and responded.

These children were born out of sharing in the creative activity of God. They heard the conversation still going on, here, now, and took part, discovering a new way of being people.

To be invited to share in a conversation about the nature of life was for them, a glorious opportunity not to be missed.” (John 1: 1-14 revisited)

God wants us to be in conversation, in dialogue, in debate, with him so that we can find him for ourselves, find ourselves in him, and embody his characteristics and interests in ourselves. The philosopher, Martin Buber, has argued that “God is not met by turning away from the world or by making God into an object of contemplation, a “being” whose existence can be proved and whose attributes can be demonstrated.” Instead, we can know God only in dialogue with him and this dialogue goes on moment by moment in each new situation as we respond with our whole being to the unforeseen and the unique.

Our dialogue with God interrogates the very nature of what we are, and how we understand our identity, as it is from the art of conversation that truth emerges and our identity is constructed. It is through this conversation that the Father loves us, showing us all that he is doing. Truth emerging and identity constructed are the greater works which he shows to us through this conversation and which astonish us.

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U2 - Invisible.

The dance of love

Here's the sermon I preached at St Mary's Runwell this morning at our joint service for Trinity Sunday:

I wonder whether those of you who are Strictly Come Dancing fans have a particular stand-out moment from the 19 series since 2004. Looking online the Top 10 Strictly moments are either those which provided comedy value - such as Ed Balls doing “Gangnam Style” or Ann Widdecombe being dragged across the floor – or those in which celebrity and dancer best combine – such as Jill Halfpenny’s Jive with her partner Dan in the final of Series 2, which was the first dance to that point to score a perfect 10.

Explaining the idea of the Trinity - three persons, one God - has always been a challenge to priests and preachers. The shamrock is one favourite illustration - three leaves, one stem - as is water - two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen forming one entity which can be a liquid, a solid and a gas.

My favourite image, though, is not of the form of the Trinity but of its dynamism and dynamic. That image is of a dance as the Greek word for the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - perichoresis - means ‘to dance around one another in relationship’ ('peri meaning around, and choreio to dance' - Touching the Sacred, Chris Thorpe and Jake Lever, Canterbury Press). As those who have danced with others regularly or those who have watched Strictly will know, dance partners interact “within a rhythm which remains the same but in a continuous variety of movements.” At its best, you have people totally in tune with one another for the period of that dance.

This is what the united relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is thought to be in the Christian faith and it means that at the very heart of God is a dynamic relationship in which a constant exchange of love is underway. That exchange has been called it the dance of love.

At several points in John’s Gospel, we hear Jesus speaking about his relationship with God the Father and with God the Holy Spirit. When he speaks in this way it is as though Jesus is pulling back the veil which prevents us from seeing God and giving us, thereby, a glimpse of God as Trinity. He says in John 16: 5-15 that God the Spirit takes what belongs to God the Son and declares it to us. All that belongs to God the Son, he says, also belongs to God the Father. So, all that Jesus has belongs equally to the Spirit and the Father. Therefore, we have a picture of God the Father giving to God the Son who gives to God the Holy Spirit who gives to us. What is being pictured is an exchange of love.

Stephen Verney explored this idea in several of his books (e.g. The Dance of Love, Stephen Verney, Fount): “The Son can do nothing of himself”, he wrote, “but only what he sees the Father doing” (5. 19). That is one side of the equation (of this so-called equality) – the emptiness of the Son. He looks, and what he sees his Father doing, that he does; he listens, and what he hears his Father saying, that he says. The other side of the equation – of the choreography – is the generosity of the Father. “The Father loves the Son, and reveals to him everything which he is doing” (5. 20), and furthermore, he gives him authority to do “out of himself” all that the Father does, and can never cease to do because it flows “out of himself”. In that dance of love between them, says Jesus, “I and the Father are one.” The Son cries, “Abba! Father!” and the Father cries “my beloved Son”, and the love which leaps between them is Holy Spirit – the Spirit of God, God himself, for God is Spirit and God is Love.”

This is the relationship of love at the heart of the Godhead where love is constantly being shared and exchanged between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is out of this relationship of love that Jesus comes into our world to open up a way for us to participate in the relationship of love that is constantly being shared between Father, Son and Spirit.

That is the incredible truth that Jesus’ words reveal to us. The Spirit takes what belongs to Father, Son and Spirit and gives it to us. We are invited in to the relationship of love which exists in the Godhead. Verney says that the eternal dance of the Trinity in heaven is reflected in the creation and we are invited to join in. Our relationship with God means that we are always being invited to be drawn further into this constant, eternal exchange or dance of love. Jesus describes this when he says that he is in the Father and the Father in him. He then extends that same relationship to others too - I am in you and you are in me. To really know love, Christianity suggests, we must be drawn into the dance of love which Father, Son and Holy Spirit share and which is at the very heart of God.

We are familiar with the idea that God’s love for us is shown in Jesus’ sacrifice of himself for us by becoming human and then dying for us on the cross. We are less familiar with the idea that we can be part of the constant exchange of love in God of which we have been speaking and which Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice enables us to experience. If we live in God, we live in love and love lives in us. We become included in the constant exchange of love which exists in the Godhead and are, therefore, constantly loved no matter what else is going on in our lives. The dance of love is the glory in God’s heart, the pattern by which we are loved and the pattern by which we are called to live.

God intends to embrace all creation within the fellowship of the Three. God’s mission is to form communities that reflect and embody the life of the Trinity by living in love and having love live in us.

“What the world needs more than anything else is communities of trust and support and love that show what kind of life is possible when we believe that God is sovereign, when we place our trust and security there. We need people and communities that believe in the power of God, that believe in the role of the church, and that are content to live through no other power than the means of grace God has given us.” (Sam Wells)

So, within the Holy Trinity, we strive, as David Runcorn has described, to be a dancing community of divine poverty. Each eternally, joyfully, dispossessing ourselves; emptying, pouring ourselves out to the favour and glory of the other. Nothing claimed, demanded or grasped; living and knowing each other in the simple ecstasy of giving, which is the unity and community of the Triune God (D. Runcorn, Choice, Desire and the Will of God, SPCK).

Let us pray: Triune God, in the dance of your love we see your nature as utter relationship. Your three persons gaze in mutual attention, relish each other in deep delight and work together in true partnership. Make your church a community across time and space that enjoys the gift of your life and imitates the wonder of your glory, until we all come into your presence and gaze upon your glory, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Amen.

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Maddy Prior - Lord Of The Dance.

Unity, protection and sanctification

Here's my reflection from today's Communion Service at St Andrew's Wickford:

Our Gospel reading today (John 17.11-19) is part of the prayer that Jesus prayed for his disciples on the night before he died. Chronologically this prayer comes before Jesus’ Ascension, but, in terms of its content, it is a post-Ascension prayer because his concern is for his disciples once he has left them. Many of his disciples had been on the road with him for three years and had sat at his feet as disciples listening to his teaching, observing his example and imbibing his spirit. Following his Ascension, he would leave them and they would have the challenge of continuing his ministry without him there. He knew that that experience would be challenging and therefore he prayed for them to be supported and strengthened in the challenges they would face. I want us to reflect on three aspects of this section of Jesus’ prayer; unity, protection and sanctification.

Jesus prays that his disciples may be one, as he is one with God the Father and God the Spirit. In other words, we have to understand the unity that is the Godhead, before we can understand the unity that Jesus wants for his disciples. As God is one and also three persons at one and the same time, there is a community at the heart of God with a constant exchange of love between the Father, the Son and the Spirit. That exchange is the very heartbeat of God and is the reason we are able to say that God is love. Everything that God is and does and says is the overflow of the exchange of love that is at the heart of the Godhead. Jesus invites us to enter into that relationship of love and to experience it for ourselves. That is his prayer, his teaching and also the purpose of his incarnation, death and resurrection.

Earlier in his farewell discourse, Jesus gave the command that we should love one another as we have been loved by God. It is in the sharing of love with each other that we experience unity and experience God. Unity, then, does not come from beliefs or propositions. It is not to do with statements or articles of faith. It does not involve us thinking or believing the same thing. Instead, unity is found in relationship, in the constant, continuing exchange of love with others within community; meaning that unity is actually found in diversity. Jesus prays that we will have that experience firstly by coming into relationship with a relational God and secondly by allowing the love that is at the heart of the Godhead to fill us and overflow from us to others, whilst also receiving the overflow of that love from others.

The second aspect of Jesus’ prayer is his prayer for our protection. Our need for protection is often physical and immediate and there are many around our world and within our community who are in need of tangible protection at this time. In his prayer, however, Jesus asks that we will be protected in a different way, by being protected in God’s name. God’s name has been given to him, he says, and he has then given that name to his disciples.

In our day, we have lost much of the depth and richness that names held in more ancient cultures. Names in Jesus’ culture and earlier were signs or indicators of the essence of the thing named. When we read the story of Adam naming the animals in the Book of Genesis that is what was going on; Adam was identifying the distinctive essence of each creature brought before him and seeking a word to capture and articulate that essential characteristic. It is also why the name of God is so special in Judaism – so special that it cannot be spoken – as the name of God discloses God’s essence or core or the very heart of his being. Jesus prayed that we might be put in touch with, in contact with, in relationship with, the very essence of God’s being by knowing his name. That contact is what will protect us. If we are in contact with the essential love and goodness that is at the very heart of God then that will fill our hearts, our emotions, our words, our actions enabling us to live in love with others, instead of living selfishly in opposition to others. Jesus prays that the essential love which is at the heart of God will transform us in our essence, meaning that we are then protected from evil by being filled with love.

The third aspect of Jesus’ prayer is to do with sanctification. Sanctification is the process of becoming holy. Jesus prays that we will be sanctified in truth, with the truth being the word of God. The Prologue to John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus himself is the Word of God. Therefore Jesus’ prays for us to become holy in Him. It is as we live in relationship to him, following in the Way that he has established, that we are sanctified. This is what it means for us to know Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life. It is vital that we note that we are not sanctified by the Truth, meaning that sanctification is not about knowing and accepting truths that we are to believe. Instead, we are sanctified in the Truth, meaning that we are made holy as we inhabit, experience, practice and live out the Truth; with that truth being Jesus.

Knowing God is, therefore, like diving ever deeper into a bottomless ocean where there is always more to see and encounter. We are within that ocean – the truth of relationship with Jesus – and can always see and uncover and discover more of the love of God because the reality of God is of an infinite depth of love. God created all things and therefore all things exist in him and he is more than the sum of all things, so it is impossible for us with our finite minds to ever fully know or understand his love. However profound our experience of God has been, there is always more for us to discover because we live in and are surrounded by infinitude of love. St Augustine is reported to have described this reality in terms of God being a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

Jesus is constantly praying for a continual and continuing immersion in relationship with Him so that we will experience unity by sharing love, protection by experiencing the essence of God and holiness through living in Him. Because we are with God and in God and God in us, we can and, increasingly, will act in ways that are God-like and Godly. That happens because we are so immersed in God and in his love that his love necessarily overflows from us in ways that we cannot always anticipate or control. Essentially, we learn to improvise as Jesus did, because we are immersed in his ways and love. That is Jesus’ prayer for us. We pray Amen, may it be so.

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Duke Ellington - Is God A Three Letter Word For Love.

The heart of the Gospel - Being with

Here's the sermon I preached at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning for a joint service of the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry: 

I wonder how you would respond to a friend who has just been bereaved. Your friend has lost a close family member in sudden, tragic and complicated circumstances. There is nothing you can do to fix this situation. You can't bring back the one who has died. There is nothing significant you can do for your friend and there are no words that can explain what has happened or that can take away the pain.

You can simply be there - be with - your friend in the middle of their grief pain and loss; alongside, sharing, being with. And that is what your friend needs from you. It is also the one thing you can give. Being with is also how God is with us. Being with is creation, the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection. It is the Christian story and the Christian hope in one simple word, with.

Sam Wells, the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, explains it like this:

‘The Gospel of Matthew begins with the angel's promise that the Messiah will be called Emmanuel - God with us. The Gospel ends with Jesus's promise to his disciples, "Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." In between we get Jesus's promise to the church, "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there with them." … And, perhaps most significantly of all, the Gospel of John says "The Word was made flesh and dwelt with us."

… Jesus's ministry, above all else, is about being with us, in pain and glory, in sorrow and in joy, in quiet and in conflict, in death and in life.

And that same "with" is even more evident when we turn to the relationship within the Godhead itself, the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is three, which means God is a perfect symmetry of with, three beings wholly present to one another, without envy, without misunderstanding, without irritation, without selfishness, without two ganging up against the third, without anger, without anxiety, without mistrust. So present to one another, so rapt in love, and cherishing, and mutuality, and devotion … that it seems they are in one another. And, to the extent that they are in one another, we call God not three, but one …

Given this perfection of being, this intersection of being with and being in, the astonishing mystery is why the Trinity's life is not simply self-contained, but becomes open to creation, to fragile existence, to life, to human beings - to you and me.’ Yet God’s longing to be with us in Jesus was such that that became the reason God created the world. God’s life is shaped never to be except to be with us in Christ, so God’s life as Trinity is shaped around being in relation with us from the very beginning of time.

We see this most profoundly on the cross where Jesus cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That question shows us that Jesus has given everything that he is for the cause of being with us, … because for the sake of our being with the Father he has, for that moment, lost his own being with the Father. And the Father has longed so much to be with us that he has, for that moment, lost his being with the Son, which is the essence of his being. The cross shows us the astounding truth that God thinks our lives are worth the Trinity setting aside the essence of its identity in order that we might be with God and incorporated into God's life forever. When we see the cross, we see that God is with us, however, whatever, wherever ... for ever. That is our faith.

All of that is encapsulated in today’s Gospel reading (John 14:23-29). Jesus teaches his disciples while he is still with them preparing them for the moment when he will no longer be with them. He is going to leave them but, although he will be gone, he will leave his peace with them through his Spirit who will remind them of everything he said and did. In that way, through the Spirit, the Father and the Son will come to the disciples and make their home with them. It is the same for us.

That is the revelation at the heart of the whole Bible. God is with us. That was what Moses discovered at the burning bush. That was what Isaiah discovered in the Servant Songs. That was what Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego discovered in the fiery furnace. That was what Mary of Nazareth discovered at the Annunciation. That was what Mary Magdalene discovered in the garden. That was what the disciples discovered on the day of Pentecost. The revelation is that through the Holy Spirit in Jesus, we are never alone; God is always with us.

In Isaiah 43 God promised that when you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. We could add to that list the pandemic and recognise that it is because God is with us in all these circumstances that we are not overwhelmed or burned or consumed and that, ultimately, we pass through them. God is with us, that is our witness as Christians and it is also our ministry.

If the heart of the Gospel is that God is with us in every circumstance and into eternity, then our task is to be with others in order that they experience God with them. That is ultimately why your friend needs you to be with them in their grief and pain and loss. Not just because there are no words you can say that will fix things and make it all alright for them, but, primarily, because it is as you come alongside them and are with them in their grief, that God is with them too. Because, through the Spirit, the Father and the Son have made their home with you, God will, in you, be with your friend as you are with your friend. Being with is the revelation of the Bible, the heart of the gospel, and the mission and ministry of the Church. It is how God is with us and how we can be with others. 

It is my prayer that together in our three churches – in our Team Ministry - we will experience God with us more deeply and fully than ever before and become more able and willing to be with others as God has come to be with us.

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I Cannot Tell Why He Whom Angels Worship.

The conversation was God

Here's the reflection I shared during today's Choral Eucharist at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.” (John 5. 17-30)

“God wants to communicate with humanity, and … Jesus represents the essence of that desire to talk,” says Mike Riddell. As God’s Son, Jesus was in a constant conversation with both God the Father and with God the Spirit. In these verses and others, the Son claims that he hears from the Father and speaks just what the Father has taught him (John 8: 26 – 29). He also claims that his relationship with the Father is not just one way, rather the Father also always hears the Son (John 11: 41 & 42).

Similarly, he says that the Spirit will not speak on his own but only what he hears (John 16: 13). The Spirit is sent, like the Son, by the Father, but comes in the name of the Son to remind the disciples of everything that the Son said to them (John 14: 26 & 27). This interplay or dialogue within the Godhead between Father, Son and Spirit can be summed up in the words of John 3. 34-35: “For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God; to him God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.”

Stephen Verney calls this interplay between Father, Son and Spirit, which he believes we are called to enter, ‘the Dance of Love.’ He writes: ‘“I can do nothing”, [Jesus] said, “except what I see the Father doing”. If he lays aside his teaching robes and washes the feet of the learners … it is because he sees his Father doing it. God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, is like that; he too lays aside his dignity and status as a teacher. He does not try to force his objective truth into our thick heads, but he gives himself to us in acts of humble service; he laughs with us and weeps with us, and he invites us to know him in our hearts through an interaction and an interplay between us. It is this knowledge that Jesus has received from the Father, and in the to and fro of this relationship he and the Father are one. They need each other. That is the pattern of how things potentially are in the universe, and of how God means them to be.’

The beginning of John’s Gospel can be read as saying that this kind of conversation, dialogue and partnership with God is actually what life is all about: “It all arose out of a conversation, conversation within God, in fact the conversation was God. So God started the discussion, and everything came out of this, and nothing happened without consultation.

This was the life, life that was the light of human beings, shining in the darkness, a darkness which neither understood nor quenched its creativity …

The subject of the conversation, the original light, came into the world, the world that had arisen out of his willingness to converse. He fleshed out the words but the world did not understand. He came to those who knew the language, but they did not respond. Those who did became a new creation (his children). They read the signs and responded.

These children were born out of sharing in the creative activity of God. They heard the conversation still going on, here, now, and took part, discovering a new way of being people.

To be invited to share in a conversation about the nature of life was for them, a glorious opportunity not to be missed.” (John 1: 1-14 revisited)

God wants us to be in conversation, in dialogue, in debate, with him so that we can find him for ourselves, find ourselves in him, and embody his characteristics and interests in ourselves. The philosopher, Martin Buber, has argued that “God is not met by turning away from the world or by making God into an object of contemplation, a “being” whose existence can be proved and whose attributes can be demonstrated.” Instead, we can know God only in dialogue with him and this dialogue goes on moment by moment in each new situation as we respond with our whole being to the unforeseen and the unique.

Our dialogue with God interrogates the very nature of what we are, and how we understand our identity, as it is from the art of conversation that truth emerges and our identity is constructed. It is through this conversation that the Father loves us, showing us all that he is doing. Truth emerging and identity constructed are the greater works which he shows to us through this conversation and which astonish us.

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Johannes Brahms - Missa Canonica.